The Root of it All
by LadyArrin
Summary: A breakdown, a root cellar, a quick little tryst. Rated M.


**A/N: This is a request from a follower on my tumblr, thereadersmuse. Prompt included Glenn, Daryl, and a root cellar, rated M. Happy reading! As always, R&R.**

Glenn was a city kid, kid being a relative term. He had a crappy little apartment in a crappy neighborhood and he loved it; even if he did deliver pizzas for a living. His parents, on the other hand, had decided to move to the sticks and so here he was, asking for directions and help in the middle of nowhere. It had started out as a quest for directions and then his crappy car had finally shit the bed with a final, devastating clunk. Literally, the middle of nowhere. This was the only driveway around for ages. He'd gone more than a few miles before he'd even found this place and the long driveway that came with it. It didn't even look like anybody was home. A hand came to sweep his hair under his cap as he looked at this...this...

He hesitated. This run-down, dilapidated house scared him more than the gang-ridden neighborhoods in which he had to work. It was straight out of that movie with the rednecks that killed people in the woods or whatever it was about. He half expected to be shot or mauled by a dog on the way up the drive. It was late and he was sweating in the thick, Georgian heat. This far out in the woods it might as well be walking through water. He felt kind of like Jesus stepping on the lake or whatever it was. Theology wasn't too high on his priority list these days, anyway. Right now he just wanted to get out of here alive.

The slim young man found that there wasn't a light on in the entire house; it was getting dark out and there wasn't a speck of light in the whole thing. The entirety of the shabby building was dark, although it looked like the door to the cellar was open. And there he saw it, a flicker of light deep down into the bottom of the of the cellar. Not the hard glare of electricity but something softer, like fire. God, could this get any worse? Any creepier? He checked his beat up old phone once more. No service. Well this was it. Either he could walk three miles in the dark back to his car and sit up all night expecting to be murdered by an axe-man or he could go ask for help in the creepy basement and likely get murdered anyway by a shotgun toting redneck who was part of the KKK in his spare time. Fuck. The dirt was quiet under his sneakers as he walked up to the open door and called out hesitantly.

"Hello?" Glenn waited by the door, going so far as to knock on it. "...is anybody there?" There was a sound of protest and fear as a figure came out of the dark holding what he had thought was a gun, but in actuality turned out to be...a hoe. An honest-to-God, garden variety hoe. He wasn't fooled. The young man had watched enough Law and Order and CSI to know how this could turn out. He wasn't entirely surprised to hear the venom in the man's voice.

"What'cha want, boy? I'm busy, if you ain't able to tell. I only got so much time in the day." Daryl wasn't feeling particularly threatened by the man who had appeared in the night, this boy who looked like he weighed twenty pounds soaking wet, but he had things he had to accomplish today and he was already behind. He was slim but then again, every asian he'd met had been a scrawny bastard. "I'm kinda busy. Make it quick." The boy, and that's exactly what he was, was in a simple red t-shirt and jeans. Sneakers. Not from around here, as evidenced by his lack of an accent.

The local was filthy, clad in a flannel shirt with the sleeves cut off and a pair of rough-looking pants, topped off with boots. There were dirt smudges across his exposed, muscular arms as well as on his forehead. And that was...a giant knife. Fuck. Glenn's eyes went wide. "Look, man." His hands came up in what he hoped was a gesture of non-violence. "My car is busted and I need a part to fix it. I don't have service on my phone and I'm lost. I just need a phone to call my parents." Oh. "And an address so I can get a ride out of here and go get that part."

The dirty man gave him an appraising look. "Ya know what ya need? Ain't got no phone but I can give you a ride t'town tomorrow if ya want it."

Glenn blinked. Well. That was a gesture of hospitality that easily took him by surprise. "Uhh...sure. That'd be great." He held out his hand on impulse. "I'm Glenn. Glenn Rhee." The man took a step toward him and shook his hand and the smaller man wasn't surprised at what he'd found. Calloused and rough; hands that worked for a living.

"Daryl Dixon. This ain't a place t'be wandering around. There's bears an' a lot of people a hell of a lot meaner than me." Not to mention the risk of getting lost and dying. Hikers wandered off all the time and just were never seen again. "Look, I ain't got much. You help me finish this job an' I'll feed ya." Kid looked like he never at, he had to be starving.

The mention of food brought a sharp, startling revelation of just _how_ hungry he was. That was his decision made right there.

"Sure, what do you need me to do?"

Daryl nodded his head towards the cellar and vanished. He'd heard of the legendary Southern Hospitality. Or the set up for a murder. But honestly, if he was going to die, at least he knew it. Glenn hesitated before following the man down into his cellar but what he found struck him silent. It was a beautiful structure, obviously done with care. Tall enough that he was able to stand comfortably among the barrels and sacks, and there were rough wooden beams as a support measure. It was something straight out of a magazine or something.

"You did all of this? Yourself?" Fingers ran carefully along the wood, then the barrels, then the sacks of seeds and potatoes. "This is freakin' awesome."

A smile quirked the edges of the other man's mouth. "Ain't never seen something built like this from th'ground up? Y'all city folk are weird." He got to work on smoothing out the floor in practiced motions, evening out the dirt and packing it down with the hoe, stepping on it with a booted foot. "Just...organize. Move everything in order, group stuff together by what makes sense. Roots go together. Seed goes together, that sorta thing. Then I gotta get these shelves installed and you're in for a meal."

They worked in utter silence. Daryl was fixing the floor, the ceiling, checking the lamp and Glenn was lifting and stacking. The damp of the Georgian heat didn't ease up as time went by and eventually was too much for him, causing him to strip self-consciously out of his soaked shirt, cursing himself for it. He only had one, which meant he was either half naked for the rest of the night or he had to put that grody shirt back on. Glenn shook his head with an almost bitter smile. Typical shit. Nothing ever quite went the way it planned it to. He was supposed to be with his parents eating dinner right now and he was stuck in the middle of the woods with a dude straight out of Deliverance.

Daryl, for his part, was working just as quietly although his brain was on a different track. Things hadn't been the same since Merle left and even if he'd never admit to anybody on this earth who was still living, he missed having somebody around. He was glad the kid had found his way to the beat up little house because it meant he finally had some company. Living this isolated life, making money between helping with one of the 'shining stills and odd-jobs was taking a toll on him. At least the house was his, though, in a legal sense. Nobody could take that away from him even though the power had gotten cut off again. It was his and he took great pride in that.

The kid stripping out of his shirt rapidly brought a much more present need to mind. Living this alone meant little outside contact and little if any, sex. Hell, he couldn't even remember the last time he'd had any help but his hand. Even as a self-respecting straight man he found himself wondering just how different it could possibly be...but what the hell would he even say? How would he even approach something like that? 'Hey, kid, you're stuck in my house wanna have sex?'

No.

And then he found the answer. His moonshine stash. It was a box of ten mason jars in the corner. That was it. That beautiful, home-done whiskey that had settled in at a beautiful, top notch of 150 proof. It was the only thing guaranteed to knock Daryl on his ass every time, which was why he saved it.

"Hey, kid. You ever had real, country moonshine before?"

–

Time found them sitting on the floor and laughing their asses off over a very bad joke that Daryl had told, something along the lines of 'A blonde walks into a bar. You think she would've seen it'. The only light that was there was from the flickering kerosine lantern and the deep sounds of the woods were all around them. They both stopped laughing eventually and let it set in.

"It's really something else out here, you know that? I'm so used to hearing sirens that I don't really process them anymore. It's just white noise. But you." A finger was pointed vaguely in the direction of Daryl's face. "You get _this_. I mean it sounds like a fuckin' jungle out there. Like, get the machete and hack your way through it kind of thing."

Daryl snorted and shook his head.

"Wouldn't go that far, but it is real pretty out here. Just watch out for bears." The woodsman thought of it for a while, passing the jar back to the kid and the same thought occurred to him again. It was really nice to have company; he had been spending so much time alone. Daryl staggered to his feet and went to pull a small radio off the shelf, blowing the dust off before flicking the switch and watching it come to life. He glanced over at the groan Glenn procured and raised an eyebrow and the boy answered without even having heard a question.

"My girlfriend listens to nothing but country. I'm so damn tired of _country_."

"Tough shit. Ain't much else out here." He turned up the volume and reached out a dirty arm to help the kid up. Glenn took the hand and pulled himself up to his feet and the world absolutely twisted on him as he stumbled. He would have fallen if it weren't for the arms of the of the almost-burly looking redneck that stopped him.

"Girlfriend, huh?"

The way the man was looking at him was uncomfortable, like he was being considered for dinner. His brain wasn't working the way it was supposed to; it was sluggish and he couldn't quite put coherent thoughts together. Everything came out wrong.

"I mean, she's a nice girl and everything yeah, and the sex is great. Just feels like something's missing." Talk about no filter, Glenn. Daryl watched as a blush crept up the kids neck and he was acutely aware that his arms had dropped onto the young man's hips as they were no longer essential in keeping him up. "Dunno what it is, really. Hey, gimme that..."

He was reaching for the moonshine jar and Daryl let him have it, taking it back for another drink before putting it on the shelf. He had no idea what he was doing. This was a bad idea. This was a really bad idea. But he was drunk and he was lonely and this kid wasn't happy in his relationship anyway so it's not like he'd be ruining anything. And even if he was, did he really care? The answer to that question was no. No he did not. That realization stole his self-control away from him and he pressed the slender young man back up against a bare patch the wall, between pieces of shelving. His arm was up next to Glenn's head and blocked his escape, lips hot on his neck as his left hand came down to press the slender man's hips back against the wall.

It was all happening too fast. Glenn had no idea what was going on. He knew that somewhere, in the back of his brain, this was bad. This shouldn't be happening. This would make him a cheater, less of a man, and not the perfect specimen his parents had raised him to be. The thought was thrilling. He wanted to be his own man. This guy didn't care that he delivered pizzas for a living. This guy didn't care how much money he made or where he lived or what he was doing with his life. This guy was a whole other breath of air and they would likely never meet again after this. Glenn's eyes closed as Daryl's mouth found his for a bruising kiss. The feel of the earth against his back, the smell of it filling his nose and mouth was as completely foreign as the feel of a muscular body against his. Somehow Daryl's shirt ended up discarded on the floor and he was running hands over the muscles that had appeared. This man made him feel so delicate and breakable. This man was going to take him to new places and it was going to be _good_.

And so he kissed back, not faltering as Daryl's hands stripped him of his jeans and boxers and gripped him whole and hot. He didn't falter as Daryl undid his own clothing and turned him around so he was pressed, chest-first, against the hard-packed earth of the cellar. He didn't falter as the redneck took him from behind, using spit as a lubricant.

Holy hell almighty it hurt but it was a good hurt, the kind that made him squirm and cry out and cause his hands to wrap around the support beam above his head. It felt like his entire body was on fire as he was pressed into the dirt. One of the large hands found a way to his hip to control everything; from the way he moved to the speed at which he was being royally fucked from behind.

Daryl was lost in the feeling of having this boy under his hands. It was something exotic and incredible and his breath was hot on Glenn's shoulder as he allowed himself to be spurred on by the man's cries. The hand on his hip pulled back to give the asian man some distance between him and the dirt, allowing him to drop his head below his shoulders as he braced his hands on the earthen wall.

He wasn't prepared for the warmth of a calloused hand to wrap around again, this time from behind, and stroke him. It was a quick tryst, over as suddenly as it had began with Glenn spending himself into the man's hand shortly after Daryl had pressed into his back with a moan of lust as he came.

Daryl couldn't have said what made him do it. Later, recalling the tale, he would blame it on the moonshine and simply say he drank too much. But as he sank back down to the floor of his newly finished root cellar, holding the young man in his arms, he would be ever grateful to the man who had distilled it.


End file.
